The present invention relates to a process and an apparatus for transferring in synchronism onto a common recording support, the images of a cinematographic film and the sound recorded during shooting on a separate support.
When shooting a cinematographic sound film, the operator manoeuvring the camera records on the cine film successive shots each constituted by a succession of images recorded on the film and corresponding to an interesting sequence. At the same time, the sound is recorded on a separate support such as a magnetic tape, the sound recording being effected in synchronism with the shooting.
To allow a subsequent operation of transfer onto a common support, such as a video tape, information, in code and/or clear, indicating in particular the date and time at which each recording was made, is recorded during each shooting, both on the cine film and on the magnetic tape for recording the sound. In other words, with each image of the cine film is associated information recorded on the film next to the image and which indicates the date and time of day at which the image in question was taken. At the same time, the magnetic tape for recording sound also bears a succession of codes indicating respectively the date and the various moments of that day when sound recordings were made. It is thus possible subsequently to transfer, onto a common recording support, such as a video tape, both the images of the cine film and the recordings of the sound tape corresponding to these images, and this in synchronism.
Up to the present time, this transfer has been effected manually and when stopped, i.e. the film editer must, in that case, position the film and the sound tape with respect to each other, using a point of synchronism recognizable both on the film and the sound tape, generally the clapboard marking the beginning of each shooting sequence. However, such a process of transfer presents a difficulty in that the sound tape is started by the sound engineer a certain time before the operator starts the cine camera himself, for recording a shooting sequence. Furthermore, the advance of the sound tape also continues a certain time after the operator has stopped the cine camera. It is therefore necessary, during subsequent transfer onto a common recording support to be able to "set" in synchronism and with precision the shooting sequences recorded on the cine film, on the one hand, and the sound sequences corresponding thereto, on the other hand.